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Stephanie Rivkin

I’ve recently come to the realization that network television will probably never make a reality show centered round me. Not because my life isn’t interesting enough and not because the people in my life aren’t colorful enough. No, no, there’s probably plenty of material for them to work with. The problem has to do with the simple, unavoidable fact that I have a bit of a potty mouth. Some of you may have noticed. I’ve known this about myself for some time, but my Lord, the things that I’ve been seeing in the news lately has had me making a run for the crown in The Most F Bombs per Minute contest (the title is currently held by Christian Bale in case you were wondering).

Can any of you relate? You turn on the news to see what’s going on in the world and are bombarded by so much horrible, detestable, gut-wrenching shit that your brain basically malfunctions. When my brain malfunctions, I am only really able to do one of two things:

Become speechless OR

Curse up a storm! This is where the producers of my reality show would decide to pull the plug. If one of my rants were ever broadcast on NBC, every other word would be a BEEP Now that might be okay in normal situations. But here lately, there’d be so many that you wouldn’t even know who I was mad at or why. I’d be speaking Morse Code rather than English.

I know you’re wondering about that first point I made. Me? Speechless? Well, you got me. I’m not really “speechless” in the technical sense. I just can’t get past the various forms of the word f**k (in all its glory) in order to make my point completely clearly here in print. My mother reads this blog after all. And if I were to censor myself, it’d be like reading one of those classified government documents with 90% of the text highlighted black.

Anyway. It’s gotten to the point where I’m avoiding the mainstream news like the plague, so I’ve only been subjected to what’s been showing up on my mobile alerts and newsfeed. Stupidly, I thought this would “help” my mood. Yeah, right. My mobile alerts and newsfeed are filled with animal advocacy issues. Not exactly a subject that helps rein in my tongue.

I swear (ha!), it’s a wonder I haven’t had a stroke yet over the stories I’ve come across. Throw in some personal issues that have had me seeing red lately and it’s been a downright free-for-all at my house. I won’t even bore you with the personal issues right now. Long story short, I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “so and so rears its ugly head.” Yeah, well…them ugly heads, they’ve been a-rearing…’Nuff said.

So what gets me sounding like Joe Pesci in a Martin Scorsese movie? In a word – Bears.

Or rather, bears accidentally mixing with dumb, ignorant, attention-hungry humans. There was a story about some woman who ran into two young bears over the summer when she was on a walk in a State Park – where (gasp!) bears live, in case you didn’t know – and rather than back away like a normal person or follow any of the safety protocols that are posted in parks, she simply could not contain herself and just had to have her 15 minutes in the spotlight. So she whips out her cell phone and starts videotaping them. Well, lo and behold, just seeing the bears in nature wasn’t enough. She then apparently started trying to get them closer to the camera by beckoning to them in baby talk. When one of the bears opened its mouth in an obvious attempt to take in her scent (as we’ve all seen animals do, hell my cat even does it), she decided to claim that it “almost bit her.” Almost bit her. How does something almost bite you, I’d like to know! It’s not like she fought it off and kept it from biting her. In the video, this “almost bite” was the bear, smelling her leg with its mouth open. Do you see the beginnings of my frustration?

Rather than keep the information of this encounter to herself, she showed the video – no, not to park rangers, but rather, to the media (therein lies the 15 minutes of fame), with the story that she was “afraid” and was just glad she got out alive. There were several times that the bears took refuge near a tree or into the woods to avoid the woman because they were clearly nervous and uncertain…did she take the opportunity to leave the area or yell to scare them farther away (since she was sooo afraid)? No. She stuck around, even going so far as to put her water bottle down so she could videotape better.

What happens next? Two dead bears, that’s what. Because the park rangers, in their complete and utter brilliance, thought that was the right thing to do (despite a public outcry and petitions coming out the ears). It should be noted that just one of the bears even approached her and most likely wouldn’t have if the woman had just had some common sense. Did I mention they were very young animals? Just a year and a half old. Still babies really. Was the woman fined for interacting with or harassing wildlife (like you’re supposed to be) for acting as she did? No. Of course not.

Okay…hang on…Breathe, Wendy. Breathe. I usually cannot get through this story without cursing profusely and typing is no exception. I must say the poor bears were surrounded by idiots that day and they paid the a dear price for human stupidity.